What a May! It was dull at first with wind round to N.E. + cold with slight drizzle but it gradually got worse + ended in heavy sleet here + snow above Yarrowford. I motored to Henderland + got the full benefit of it. Jas. Mitchell better.1 The competition in the motor trial2 came over Falla + down Moffat on their way to Hawick + Dumfries, but they were past before I got to Henderland. Gave Chlor[oform] to May McKay3 + D.4 did a [illegible] fixation + (accidentally) removed her appendix while he had the abdomen open! [illegible text] Nurse Beck’s5 rectum.
1 The Editor assumes that this refers to James Mitchell senior (about 1854-1929), farmer and tenant at Henderland Farm, Megget parish. Dr Muir had been attending the Mitchell family at Henderland, Megget, north of St Mary’s Loch, since late 1921. In the 1921 Census the family comprised James Mitchell senior aged 67, James Mitchell junior, 35, Mary Richardson Mitchell, 33, Eliza Dalgleish Mitchell, 25, and Isabella Shiel Mitchell, 26.
2 The motor trial or rally does not appear to have been covered by the Southern Reporter.
3 May McKay is unidentified.
4 David Charteris ‘Dav.’ Graham (1889-1963), M.B., Ch.B., medical practitioner and Dr Muir’s business partner.
5 Elizabeth Fyfe Beck (1865-1954), nurse, born Dumfriesshire, died Ceres, Fife;. The Southern Reporter, 10 August 1916, describes her as a District Nurse at Selkirk before she was released to take up military nursing.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 